In the shadow of critically acclaimed films like Eighth Grade and Lady Bird, coming of age stories have become simultaneously reinvigorated and had a skeptical lid placed on the hormonal jumping beam that are coming of age stories. The all too relatable stories of first love, first love lost, the deep unknowable rage that ate us all from the inside until we were husks of people starving for the slightest bit of familiarity in the world, and acne. All those big adolescent milestones told time and again since Rebel without a Cause. Now actress Hannah Marks (with Joey Power) presents her own example of the high school graduate experience in Banana Split, reconciling the hard latch about to shatter all her direct connections while exploring female friendships in the face of male intrusion.

Under the steady tutelage of cinematographer Benjamin Kasulke (Safety Not Guaranteed, Humpday) in his feature debut, Banana Split follows April (Hannah Marks) as she splits from her first relationship with her stoner Adonis, Nick (Dylan Sprouse, post-Disney) and finds an emerging friendship with his new girlfriend Clara (Liana Liberato), balancing between respecting their budding (or rebound?) relationship and growing trust amid jealousy-ridden circumstances. Kasulke must be an UN peacekeeper for harnessing an occasionally whacky, inherently messy story of young adults face planting into adulthood with mature decisions only recently breached in our digital age. Hannah Marks launches through her final days before college shapes her into a maladjusted adults–or wrecks her in the process–and her awareness to dive into the emotional insecurity of the times, which often hangs long into adulthood if it ever goes away, takes her beyond teen girl drama into women experiencing the complexities of love for the first time. Liberato and Sprouse let her shine, more props in April’s Summer of 69 than their own developing people. Nick’s best friend Ben (Luke Spencer Roberts) is a flabbergasted accomplice on all sides who finds his superiority is less inflapable than he believed. Roberts plays the sidekick with standout flash bridging the funny hat wearing best friend as someone seething with the social envy of adolescence. The standout comedic mastermind comes from April’s little sister Agnes (Addison Riecke, The Beguiled) who ditched her Disney primness to be a visceral 13-year-old beyond her age: a firecracker temper edging toward hormonal meltdown and soap-in-mouth cleaning routines. Riecke sparks the movie with another generation of preteen adults drowning in Instagram models and Kardashian antics ready to take over the mosh pit called puberty.

Banana Split falls into cliches the Bechdel test would vomit on; haven’t we touched on physical violence from emotional turmoil for too many years; don’t we know how to offend people in a far more psychological fashion than jealous dudes punching and slurpee showers? The female buddy comedy has gained notoriety post-Bridesmaids, and with Booksmart and Never Goin Back, among others, dancing around as cinematic competitors, Banana Split adds a unique touch in their production with an unabashed cast who bounces off each other like childhood friends (Liberato and Marks actually are, according to the director). The film should release later this year.

]]>http://www.outtothemovies.net/siff-2019-banana-split/feed/0Philomena (2013)http://www.outtothemovies.net/philomena-2013/
http://www.outtothemovies.net/philomena-2013/#respondSun, 19 May 2019 15:21:05 +0000http://www.outtothemovies.net/?p=3537Continue Reading →]]>I have been borderline obsessed with Stephen Frear’s Philomena, the Judi Dench starring true life story of Philomena Lee, an Irish woman who hid the story of nuns selling off her son for fifty years and her journey to meet the child she never intended to let go. Aside from being one of Judi’s best performances–a masterwork in perceived innocence and charming simplicity–the film has everything: criticism of religion, criticism of religious critics, lies, evil nuns, flashbacks done right, and did I mention Judi fricking Dench?! By her side in understated exceptionalism, comedian Steve Coogan (Oscar nominated for his witty, sharp screenplay) takes on a straight man journalist who grows while still letting the shine go to Philomena’s troubling, emotional journey.

Where the screenplay mixes an odd couple duo with a tear inducing maternal pilgrimage, Judi Dench’s precise and lived in performance portrays decades of internalized guilt as it pours out in stalwart batches of emotional catastrophe. Capturing her back and forth decisions to chase the constant obstacles of Catholic secrecy and international son searching, Dench is devastating in her relatability. This is my grandmother; this is my older aunt. But in her lighter moments, she thrives with those neighbor lady vibes. Describing her romance novel–cooing “and he only has the one foot”–she’s committed to the fantasy she was kept from by sexual naïveté and generational lack of romance. She has An eagerness for buffets and politeness alike but was call you out with a verbal lashing. It’s hard for an actress of her stature and legend to come off as charming and genuine; there’s such an unassuming levity, you’d expect she was a lady from the grocery store who gets really excited about the perfectly ripe raspberry samples.

Philomena is one of those sad but very real gems that proves the length to human randomness, that wealth and stature doesn’t equate happiness or what is best, and the ever useful reminder that organized religion can be very dangerous. As other people try to dictate her pain, Judi Dench allows Philomena Lee’s heartache and love for her long lost son to supersede the selfish desires of those either blocking her path or claiming they are one her side. Stephen Frears (Dangerous Liaisons, The Queen) knows no end to how to use a stellar actress.

]]>http://www.outtothemovies.net/philomena-2013/feed/0SIFF 2019: Sword of Trusthttp://www.outtothemovies.net/siff-2019-sword-of-trust/
http://www.outtothemovies.net/siff-2019-sword-of-trust/#respondFri, 17 May 2019 20:40:32 +0000http://www.outtothemovies.net/?p=3529Continue Reading →]]>Seattle’s favorite hometown direct Lynn Shelton opened SIFF 2019 with a lighthearted comedy skimming the backward inconsistency in the American South. When Cynthia (Jillian Bell) returns to Birmingham, Alabama, with her partner Mary (Michaela Watkins), they find a reverse mortgage has taken the home they expected to inherit leaving only a Civil War sword and a disheveled story around its involvement with the South winning the war. The couple pairs with a local pawn shop owner Mel (Marc Marion) and his dim assistant Nathaniel (Jon Bass) in a quest to profit off those collect “evidence” for a Confederate victory. Marc Maron and Jon Bass

Lynn Shelton blends improv and solid humorous situations to make the festival begin with a charming odd couples’ adventure into baffling ways of thinking. The primary quartet bounce off each other splendidly, shifting from whatever pile of deceptions they concoct at the given moment. A delightful spontaneity shines with the second guesses and false starts through their entire confusion endeavor. Jillian Bell is a befuddled badass with manners. Marc Maron permits a gentle unraveling of his character; his explanation for how he acquired the pawn shop presented history worthy of a television season. Jon Bass is to Maron as Pedro was to Napoleon Dynamite; his wide mouthed gape hides any chance he’s aware of what he’s doing. Michaela Watkins takes MVP with her take charge, rapid fire yarn unspooling: a lesbian ready to ignite a racist patriarchy for all she can burn without an arson charge.

Michaela Watkins

Sword of Trust bans together outsiders in a toxic world, and its debut the week of a draconian abortion law in Alabama highlights two points: not everyone in these areas is a backward person, but when they are it is unerring though misguided. Shelton has proven a consistent filmmaker over the last decade, and her most recent contribution is a welcome example of collaborative effort producing a warm, natural experience.

High Life catapults a storage container’s worth of death row inmates into hyperspace and uses them as fertility guinea pigs: what could possibly go wrong? Claire Denis’ sci-fi experiment takes big swings but when it lands, the passage of time and the dignity of human life is taken into a microcosm of all the worst bits of being alive. Robert Pattinson takes center stage as a father approaching oblivion with his infant daughter Willow, born in this scientific horror show, managing to be equal bits Kubrick and new wave as the history of these cast-offs unfurls with ever more complicated, damaging reluctance to lay back and accept their fate. Juliette Binoche inherits the bleak role as a scientist propped up to take a eugenics experiment for her own final venture into madness. Slow and methodical, the separation between Pattinson’s paths pre- and post-crew disappearance produces a veiled semblance of humanity from the dregs of interspace travel. The final combination of glimpsing a parallel fate and accepting a terminal velocity for the father-daughter conclusion will haunt me for a while. Enjoy a cerebral voyage into A24’s continuously expanding collection of tremendous genre cinema.

Where Sebastián Silva has not perfected the exintricities of American male bonding or race politics, Tyrel stars Jason Mitchell (Mudbound, Straight Outta Compton) as Tyler, the sole black man at a rural birthday getaway in New York. As much like Get Out as it sounds, it’s a different kind of social anxiety nightmare as the masculinity shows, binge drinking, and casual racism add piles of otherness to Tyler’s discomfort in unfamiliar surroundings. Less obscure than Silva’s earlier films, Tyrel is an ensemble piece blending midlevel stars (Michael Cera, Christopher Abbott, Caleb Landry Jones) with barely contained raucous boy behavior. Much more focused than the constant drunkenness and wrestling matches would lead you to believe, the weekend shenanigans resolve wonderfully with Ann Dowd’s and Reg E Cathey’s contributions as neighbors who try to center an inebriated escape. It is difficult to handle toxic masculinity and difficult social ease, but Silva found an intriguing way to explore the boundaries tequila just won’t let stay grounded. You can find Tyrel on Hulu

Trying to consider the glorious presentation that is Bi Gan’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night—not the Eugene O’Neill play—during dental work is like living a David Lynch version of Little Shop of Horrors. The dreamlike quality of its opposing halves creates disjointed recollections of a man searching for a femme fatale from his past skating the edge of her nightclub missteps and an hour long single shot mirroring the first half’s memories in a wonderfully staged 3D journey to form an unattainable reconnection. Jue Huang turns his journey into a pensive recollection of the passing reality of memory, and Wei Tang forms two halves of his fantasy woman: green gowned fantasy and the disconnected girlfriend who he can save from her limited unhappy mediocrity. An atmospheric lazy-river ride with occasional waterboarding, Long Day’s Journey into Night is a fascinating experience. You’ll never watch someone eat an apple the same again.

While watching The Chilling Tales of Sabrina dance around coven patriarchal fascism, trying to comprehend the emotional impact and cultural mirroring in Christian Petzold’s Transit is becoming increasingly distracting. Taking an adaptation of Anna Seghers’ 1942 story of a man escaping Nazi occupied France by posing as a secretly deceased author and meeting the author’s widow, Petzold placed the story in modern day without explaining a thing. Franz Rogowski as Georg flees repeated attacks by militarized police and national loyalists turning him in during raids until he finds himself in bureaucratic limbo expecting to be discovered at every turn. When Paula Beer (Never Look Away, Frantz) becomes entangled in his impersonation, a tenuous mistaken love triangle (or square, or whatever it is, it’s very European) that complicates the limited opportunities to flee before impending doom routes the targeted citizens to drastic measures. It was hard to decipher the time or the narrator and the chaos of it all keeps you wheeling, but I found myself enthralled with its commentary on modern fascist uprising and the somewhat baffling, terrifying way it felt so natural. Petzold sees history repeating itself, and that juxtaposition is brilliant

Shazam! was my biggest surprise for this weekend. DC finally pulled out a comedic competitor to the likes of Deadpool without the sleaze or Guardians without being slave to a larger storyline. The quest for power and the implications of temptation presented a goofy but tonally sound entry that hopefully informs a less bombastic style of filmmaking in their future endeavors.

When Billy Batson (Asher Angel) winds up in Philadelphia searching for his mother, he finds himself in a group home with ample potential. Keeping his distance, a good deed helping his foster brother Freedy (Jack Dylan Grazer, It, Beautiful Boy) finds himself face-to-face with a wizard needing to pass his powers to a worthy (enough) savior for humanity. Zachary Levi as the swole superhero with a fourteen-year-old’s foolishness and excitement at invincibility. Faced with a man refused the powers as a boy (Mark Strong in all his bald villainy), he struggles to tackle the seven deadly sins, hiding his superpowers, and avoiding truancy laws.

Director David F. Sandberg (Lights Out) kept a steady tone throughout his film, not allowing it to get too dark or bogged down in drama or explosions like its less impressive brethren. Levi is hilarious, but Grazer gave brazen brother Freddy a fiery sidekick with wit to burn: honestly one of the best supporting performances of the year. If you can see the detail and feel for the characters, you’re more likely to succeed at bringing back audiences disappointed in poor productions ignoring character for cheese and chase scenes. Now time to go to sleep until Avengers: Endgame releases.

If you’re looking for a decent atmospheric horror film with a healthy crop of jump scares and a very tense ending, Pet Semetary is a fun enough movie. If you’re a Stephen King purist, stay far away. The swap to the older sibling presented the chance to turn the anti-infanticide arc into a more menacing feature: an actual force for change rather than just destruction.

Jason Isaacs plays a father grieving with all the slow-tear-rolling dramatics, but Amy Seimetz as the mother experiencing her past and present with baffled horror. Reuniting with her daughter with her still living son on the line is one of the better horrified scenes in recent film. I’m just always happy to see John Lithgow in anything; his grizzled old man seems like Harry and the Hendersons should have a sequel where George Henderson decides living with the Sasquatch is how he wants to spend his last years, away from zombie kids with knives. The pay-off was limited for me as a non-horror enthusiast, but if you’re just looking for a good thrill, it hits all the notes to get your blood racing. I’ll use it as a reminder why children, pets and rural living are not for me.

A climate conscious comedy with surreal elements accentuating the heroic efforts of its heroine, Woman at War produces a superhero in her own right in Halla (Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir), aka “The Mountain Woman” who is trying to complete her mission to deindustrialize Iceland before she gains custody of a Ukrainian orphan with her twin sister Ása. Evading public knowledge behind a Nelson Mandela mask and carefully pilfered typewriters, her message is sensible and her means are epic. Geirharðsdóttir manages the choir director-turned-environmental terrorist with a mix of urgency and authenticity, and her yoga instructor teacher breaches a goofiness level on par with the surreal mix of traditional music noting Halla’s brave venture into the criminal realm. Focusing on the parent in Halla aiming for another generation to survive in a fast changing world, writer-director Benedikt Erlingsson (Of Horses and Men) unleashes a tempered, realistic quest at saving a species all the more powerful as we are saving ourselves: a mounting fear for the future of humanity. Fun, furious and ripe for its English-language remake (already announced).